


Haunted

by IllusionWriter



Series: Fear The Walking Mutes [3]
Category: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming to terms with past mistakes, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Forgiveness, Guilt, Hallucinations, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, One Shot, Parenthood, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad, Self-Acceptance, Wolves, alternative universe, road to redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25145521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllusionWriter/pseuds/IllusionWriter
Summary: Some years after her betrayal and Wolf's disbandment, the Alpha mother tries hard to deal with the demons she built up for herself.(Set in an alternative universe where Wolf spares the alpha mother's life.)
Series: Fear The Walking Mutes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728472
Kudos: 27





	Haunted

Magenta-hued eyes opened slowly to a world full of darkness.  
  


A world where nothing was observable or discernible. 

Nothing but the claws on her hands, and the pink pearl necklace around her neck.

Everything was absent in the void but herself.

Fully coming to some sort of grip to her situation, she finally arose to her feet, a figure in the sea of loneliness.  
And from there, she began to walk.

Walk...  
Walk...  
Walking...  
Walking with her feet stepping timidly against the black ground beneath her.

Everything seemed like purgatory to her.

Until a light appeared.

And though only a slither, a light was shown against her body, the ray splitting her down the middle.

It ever slowly began to grow, the intensity getting brighter and brighter until her pupils grew into slits and her instincts had defended against it with an arm raised in front of her eyes.

It was like a door. A door that had opened to reveal the only visible sense of hope for the poor soul.

But her heart panged when a silhouette began to take form as it passed through. It never stopped in it’s approach. The closer it got, the more the apprehension clouded her thinking.

The more of the gap between this unknown figure was closed, the more pieces of it she began to recognize.

_The pink jacket..._

Closer.

_The collared black shirt..._

And closer.

_black pencil skirt..._

And even closer.

_Magenta-colored eyes..._

It strutted forward and grew closer and closer until...

_...a pink pearl necklace._

Her heart sank.

It was _her_.

She found herself practically staring into a mirror.

The bluish-grey coat of fur with a white mask connected to a white underbelly...and the tips of it’s ears were black. Sharp fangs protruding from the maw...

She shook her head, but no matter how many times she did, the doppelganger refused to disappear from her sight.

The only difference between them is that the form in front of her was grinning eerily, and she wasn’t.

 _“Cecilia...”_ the doppelganger spoke through the fang-exhibited, gritted teeth.

It sounded just like her. And it knew her name.

_“You’re the scum who **killed my husband!** “_

Cecelia panicked internally as the clone knelt down and grabbed something that wasn’t there before. And as the smirking figure arose, it was very clear that it’s intentions were anything but neighborly. Gripped tightly in it’s paws was a lengthy plank of wood.

Cecilia struggled with her own body. She couldn’t move herself from where she stood. She was frozen in place.

  
_“...we were planning on killing you from **the very start.** ”_ the doppelganger echoed to her.

Then it swung.

The plank’s end made full, uncensored contact against Cecilia’s jaw. She was sent spiraling to the floor, the pain coating her entire cranium.

She struggled to get up, but all she could manage was to spit out some of the excess blood from her maw. 

Including a broken fang.

Cecilia turned herself onto her back and tried holding herself up with her elbows.

  
_“Anybody that roams in our territory uninvited ends up **dead**.”_

  
Another bout of pain spread throughout Cecilia’s head as the plank pounded against the top of her skull. She immediately went limp and fell against her side.

_“There’s no going back, ~~ **J-le-e**~~...you know that.”_

  
This was her punishment. It was hers to bear, and hers to bear alone. So as her nefarious clone unsheathed the knuckle blade from it’s casing, she accepted whatever came next.

It wasn’t like it was the first time she had to.

The excruciating pain that came after the knife had plunged into her chest had nothing on the mocking glare of glee that her doppelganger gave her. That she gave _herself_.

As her vision began to blur and cloud itself into a creeping darkness of it’s own, she watched as the clone hovered above her and opened her maw to reveal the rows of sharp teeth riddled from within.

And it just sat there for a moment, frozen like glass in a horrifying smile-like display of hunger, just waiting to pounce.

Then....

Then it _did_. 

* * *

  
“Ah!”

Cecilia flung her head forth from her pillow with a sharp, brief shriek.

The wolf’s eyes darted too and fro for a few seconds before finally resting on them on her hands. She rubbed them together and contemplated their validation. She gripped the fur of her head with one hand as she heaved in the reality that had set in.

It was a dream.

 _No_.

It was a _nightmare_.

She tried evening her heart rate with regulated breaths, but it seemed to be fairly ineffective.

_“Cecilia.”_

The alpha froze.

Everything was quiet, save for the slight wind gusting outside.

Then it happened _again_.

_“Cecilia.”_

She turned to the space beside her and her eyes widened in horror.

Her husband Alphonso store back at her with a blank expression, his eyes dead and lifeless but still trained straight into her own. Blood trailed down from the knife wound in his chest as it streaked down his pink sweatshirt.

Cecilia went for a scream, but her voice cracked. She turned herself away and clenched her eyes shut.

She didn’t think. She forced herself to the side of the bed and got off onto her feet, making sure to avoid looking at the space she had slept next to, need she be reminded of her past mistakes once more.

“No...no, no, no...not tonight...” Cecilia whispered to herself, her voice shaky and uncertain.

  
Cecilia exhaustively turned the knob to the bathroom door and entered. She wished she had shut it more quietly, but her fogged mind had other intentions.

She had no idea what phase of the night it was, but she observed the moon’s light still present through the small window above the tub, despite the overgrown roots that had set through the broken window frame.

She found herself tiredly switching her sight towards the lightly cracked mirror and observed her bloodshot eyes as they peered back. Her fur was disheveled and her nightgown was hanging looser on one end of her shoulder.

She looked _awful_.

Cecilia agitatedly narrowed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Get it together, alpha...” she whispered hoarsely to herself, turning the knob of the faucet and letting the stream of cold water flow through.

She built it up in her cupped hands, splashing her face and going to work on collecting more than just water.

“Stop, Cecilia...” she told herself.

Another splash as she rubbed her eyes. She looked at herself in the mirror and gritted her fangs.

“Stop...”

She coated her face with another gathering of water. After a short pause, she re-visited her sights into the mirror-

A dark-skinned face wearing a grey wolf’s cloak store back.

**_You filthy liars!_ **

Before she could blink, the metal staff was swung at her, cracking through her thoughts and shattering her self-assurance.

Cecilia shrieked and cupped her hands against her face, stumbling backwards. The alpha's back pressed hard against the wall behind her, slowly sliding down against it until she rested in a weeping mess on the tiled floor.

“ _Jolene_...I’m sorry...I’m sorryyy...” the alpha mother quietly wailed as the warm tears streamed down her face.

_***Knock Knock*** _

Cecilia’s eyes shot open as she pushed herself back to her feet.

“Mother? Are...are you okay?”

Unmistakable. It was Margot.

“Y-yes, honey...just...just a bad nightmare. Heh, they don't exactly just stop when you get older...I’m alright sweetie. Just go back to sleep, okay?” Cecilia replied to her through the door, praying she would buy her words.

There was a cease before words were spoken back.

“Okay.”

Small footsteps slowly made their way back down the hall.

Cecilia released the pent up breath she held in and gazed back into the mirror before burying her face in her hands again.

* * *

  
“Don’t worry, Cecilia. I’ll take good watch over them. Just do what you do best.”

Cecilia gave her friend a weak smile and slung the backpack over her shoulder. “I could always count on you. Thanks for everything. I shouldn’t be longer than...about four days.”

Her youngest child ran up to her, apparently having awoken and overheard the adult’s conversation.

“Margot, what are you doi-”

Cecilia’s surprise was interrupted by a hefty embrace. Margot’s face buried into her stomach, her gleaming, pleading eyes looking up at her.

“Mother? You’re heading back out? C-can I come with you this time? Please?”

Cecilia’s eyes darted briefly to the daisy bracelet she still wore around her wrist. Though her mother’s smile grew wider, Margot hadn’t registered the fretting in her eyes.

_**...you said we were family!** _

Cecilia took in a breath, unable to mask the shakiness it gave off.

“I’m...sorry honey, but this is going to be for the long haul. I don’t want to put you into any unwarranted danger. You’re growing older but you’ve still got a ways to go. In time, my dear.” Cecilia looked down upon her daughter with soft eyes. “But don’t you worry. Ms. Elsa will watch over all of you while I’m gone. I’ll be okay.”

Margot paused wordlessly, the magenta-colored pearls that were her eyes unchanging. Still, she managed a smile.

“Okay. _Please_ be careful, mother.”

“I will, honey. I promise.”

* * *

  
Cecilia made her way down the small cliff and towards the residential forest. She had rehearsed and practiced many methods and ways to avoid the dreaded spot where all that happened before transpired into one place.

She had tried counting as she store up slightly into the sky.

She had tried closing her eyes and reopening them only slightly so that everything around her was blurry, but still discernible...so when she passed, she wouldn’t register it.

She had even at one point tried convincing herself that it _didn’t exist_. Luckily, that was long ago, around the time it had... _happened_.

 _‘Pitiful...’_ Cecilia thought to herself. _‘Absolutely pitiful...to try and forget...after all these years...’_

The mother alpha stopped just short of passing what she had tried so desperately to avoid.

And so she stood there, looking forward and away from the mound of dirt she had too often steered clear of, lest she risk another hallucination. Another pent up eruption of regrets and disparities.

But then she remembered something. Something she had promised herself to look back to when things got dark.

Cecilia gripped her shirt collar tightly before she eased her breathing.

She turned towards the source of her apprehension, her eyes filled with a bit of conviction.

  
It was _Alphonso’s grave_.

  
Cecilia sighed a long, drawn-out sigh and slowly knelt down beside it, recounting the numerous flowers and daisies that decorated her husband’s burial site. A lot more daises had seemed to have cropped up than she remembered. Was Margot leaving them routinely, even after all of this time?

Tracing a hand lightly against the dirt burial, she pictured her husband clasping hands with her from the other side. It was almost as if everything that had transpired through the restless nights over the years were gone and had never happened. All of the panic attacks, all of the broken images that haunted her...they had evaporated in the face of this moment. Even though she knew it wouldn’t be like this forever.

She would do _everything_ she could to make it right.

All of the pain she caused would _never_ be reconciled.

But she still had to _try_.

She _had_ to try.

A blissful, unexpected calm washed over her fur, causing her body to shiver.

She had to forgive _herself_.

Cecilia leaned over the grave and picked up one of the daisies laid about and observed it within the palm of her hands. Her eyes continued to look down at the singular flower before she grasped it into a gentle fist.

  
And then she smiled.

  
She turned away from Alphonso’s grave to begin her walk into an admittedly unknown future before she abruptly turned back to the burial one last time.

That thing she remembered.

Something that her husband had told her not long after they had first met long, long ago. Something that had always helped calm her through the choppy waves of the storms they had passed through together.

She brung forth the words through her weak smile and filled with an acceptance of what was.

  
_“You’re all alone. Unless you choose not to be.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Ending song: [Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gDhsUWCHrg&list=PLLp4cRg5S-EhxsElEwMC_40WHU8EyNFBz&index=173)


End file.
